Dissonance
by venoz
Summary: Draco’s obsession has a beginning, middle, and end in all the wrong order. HD AU. Part One of Obsession
1. The End

**Dissonance**

_Draco's obsession has a beginning, middle, and end - in all the wrong order. H/D_

**The End – With A Passion**

I'm watching, can you see me?

You can.

I'm watching and I think you can _see_ me. See right through me to the scattered mess of confusion I know is there that desperately waits for the answer but doesn't even know the question.

I do this often, far too often. It's a habit, a bad habit that I can't break and that I keep giving into. It's biting my nails and sucking my thumb or cracking my knuckles only far more destructive to my body.

Would you like to know why I stare? I bet you would. Or maybe you wouldn't. Would the answer make you blush? Would it make you angry or disgusted? Would you hate me even more or would that heroic part of you want to reach out to me in pity.

I don't want your pity. Far from it. A far cry.

I'm crying – crying out for something to be real and for something that I can hold and for things to maybe just end but they won't.

Or maybe they already are. The story's already ending.

Its potions and you're here. I'm watching you, you can see me, can't you? You're uncomfortable under my gaze and you fidget in your chair and your friend stares at you like you're mad.

You're not. Won't ever be half as mad as I am.

One of your sidekicks isn't there. He's missing. I don't care. I like him gone. Never liked him, he ruined things for me and he's always winning – just like you.

Don't you two make such a perfect pair?

So perfect I want to scream because it's not fair. It isn't _fair_ that such a person can be considered good enough for you. It makes me angry and hateful and jealous and I really hate jealousy – father says it's bad; that it clouds your mind and takes away your sanity.

You're looking over at me now and I can't tell what you're thinking but it's something else and it seems misplaced and – are you really looking at me this way? You can't be because I haven't even dreamed of this; haven't even let myself. There's something in your eyes that's make time go by oddly – why's everything suddenly so slow? You're looking at me – is it _me_ you're looking at when just a minute ago you weren't happy with that fact that _I_ was watching _you_?

Your lips are moving and I think I'm mesmerized.

Or possibly paralyzed.

Or maybe a little of both.

You smile. You smile and there's white teeth and pink lips and I think I want to die.

And something's pushing past me and it's big and red and _of course_. So bloody obvious – why didn't I see? He always beats me anyways. Always, always. And you always stand up for him and you're always with him and he's always, always got you.

I hate him.

He makes me angry, so angry I want to run over to him and rip him apart and possibly also feed him to several hungry dogs. Or maybe a Hippogriff or some other magical and deadly creature. It would be great I think, I would laugh. But you wouldn't, would you? You'd hate me even more and you'd never look at me, although you don't look at me much now – it's like I'm invisible. Completely not worth your time, or far more immature to be a bother. Do I mean that little to you?

I probably do.

I hate him, but you'd hate it more if I did anything so this time only I think I won't so I just watch you and the only thing you can see on my face is the sneer, and it's such a horrible sneer. The kind you're used to and the kind I think you deserve and you don't even see that maybe there's something underneath it.

I'm looking at you and I hate you, I can't keep my head straight and I think this is the first potions assignment I've failed.

I'll never learn my lesson though. This is driving me insane and I think I can't take it anymore and I'm falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Falling.

Couldn't you save me? You save everyone else but you don't care about us do you? The people on the other side? You forget that we actually are people and that maybe we're suffering worse than you and that maybe you're the reason we _are_.

I know you're why I suffer, but it's not for the reason people would think.

I still watch you, although watching you has become a drug. Something horrible addictive that likes to take over and seep into me and controls the contours of my mind so perfectly that I don't even notice it sometimes. It's horrible but I can't escape – I _try_ to escape but it's the most impossible thing I think I've tried to do in the world.

So I'm still watching you and it's lunchtime. I hope no one sees. I wouldn't notice would I? I couldn't, I'm not paying attention to anything else.

It's a habit – more like need – a horrible habit that I can't get rid of but I _need_ to get rid of it. It consumes me and I just want it to _leave_.

Father says that habits are bad.

He says that obsessions are bad. They cloud your mind and take away your sanity.

Just like you do.

He says that hate is bad, which is a funny thing coming from my father. But I suppose it makes sense because I don't think he hates people. He doesn't want to bother hating people that he thinks are below him.

Hating someone clouds your mind and makes you weak and hating someone with a passion is like practically giving up your sanity.

You. Just like you.

Father also says that love is bad. That it clouds your mind and makes you weak and takes your sanity from you.

Why does this remind me of you?

Everything reminds me of you and I hate it. I hate that everything I look at comes back to you – the world revolves around you doesn't it? I always had my suspicions… - and I want to touch it like it will suddenly morph into you and I could have those bright, bright eyes and that hair and those lips and they could be on me and everywhere at once; hot and wet and I'd never want it to _end_.

Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that be oh-so-good and wonderful and so very, very impossible?

Father also says you are bad. I wonder if I'd I asked him… would he said you cloud people's minds and make them weak and take their sanity?

Because I'd agree.

You're not even looking at me. Like I'm not in the room and like I'm not watching you and like I haven't already been for years. For _years_. And it's taking my last citadel and before I know it I'll be completely yours. You can have me. I know I said I'd have you but I meant the opposite. And it wasn't the right tense anyway, because you already _do _have me. And why the hell can't you see this?

You're sitting there and you're happy and why do _I _never get to be happy? Some lovely twisted world we have here. Horribly full of favoritism and ugly, ugly people.

Remember in first year? How we were robbed of a perfectly good cup because _you _went against the rules? How they'd let a group of kids have their victory and their reward and their pride only to have it snatch away in a spree of public humiliation?

Horrible. It's horrible – it's so fucking horrible. Horribly how everyone worships you and how everyone thinks you're horribly bloody brilliant and how I keep managing to be exactly like them.

I hate you.

I had a dream about you last night. Would you like to know what happened? It would make you blush. Would you like me to tell you? I could. Maybe I could _show_ you and then you'd turn red but would it be only of anger and disgust?

It would, wouldn't it? – knowing you.

And I _do _know you. Know you more than anyone else because you're always there and I'm always watching you. You're in the hall and at the meals and classes and you're there even when you're not; you're always in my head so when I close my eyes it's not an escape because I have nightmares of you too. Yes – they're nightmares of the best kind. We touch and we breathe and moan and there's so much touching that I can't take it anymore and I come back to consciousness and I'm screaming like after any nightmare.

Screaming for more. Screaming for it to be _real_.

Sometimes we don't touch. Sometimes you're just _there_ and I like those too because in those we're happy and I've never been that happy before, it feels nice doesn't it? Maybe I should tell you of those dreams?

But I still wake up from them screaming.

My housemates hate the screams. They hate the pleas that I make in my sleep that wake them up at all the worst times.

If they knew these nightmares were about you they'd hate it even more.

They'd hate me. So I cannot tell them and I can't let out my secrets to anyone because they'd _hate_ me and none of them would understand. The boys would laugh and the girls would look at me funny and not a single one would try to help me deal with it.

I wish I could just tell someone. Wouldn't that be nice? I wouldn't know – I'm too afraid to do it. All I can do is let it bottle up as I watch you and now you're laughing with them and it looks so fun and why do you never laugh like that with me? Don't answer – I know why. It's perfectly obvious.

Even the ending will be perfectly obvious. It'll be just as everything always was and it won't even change because I don't really think I do change very well. Nothing is going to change and I can see the ending coming soon. This _is_ the ending. It always has been. It's always the same with us and it always will be.

From the very beginning we had met our ending; far before the story had a chance to bloom.

It's coming – let's see it, if this story has a chance for change now. I won't set hope on it, I never do. But we can see because there's always room for that last twist in the plot, that little turn that no one expects and really – I'm not expecting it, deep down I know I actually do hope for it but I can't be the one to initiate this drastic alteration.

I couldn't possibly be the one to do so.

Remember? I'm in the house of cowards. We have ambition; yes I've got plenty of that. But when it comes down to doing something bold and life shifting, I become frightened and flea to hide behind something far bigger than I am - like when I fled from the forest.

Do you remember when we were in the forest? We were only eleven but I knew I had to have you. And I remember being so afraid – you were never afraid – I was so _afraid_. What if something attacked us? What if we were eaten? I remember grabbing your arm because you were strong and brave but you didn't notice did you? You were far too busy ignoring my presence and hating that you had detention in the first place.

It's quiet now, because I've just left the Great Hall and so have you. I follow you often. Sometimes you see me, others not. Only now, I mean to talk to you, but you've those idiots with you. You're best friends. You love them, don't you? Or, you think you do. You don't know what love is.

You'll never know what love is until you've been trapped in it's clutches for years desperately trying to break yourself free.

This time you see me and you all stop – tell them to go away, just tell them to _leave_ – and you ask what the hell I'm doing following you. What are you looking for? Some sort of bloody answer? You really want me to give you an explanation?

How could I when I don't know what the hell I'm doing myself?

This could be it. I think it really could. Maybe if I just told you in front of them you'd believe it, because who'd want to embarrass themselves _that_ much for a simple lie? You'd have to believe it, I know you would. You're the trusting sort of person.

But now I'm talking words that are not the one's I intended for. This always happens doesn't it? Just at the time I'm hoping for a change – even when I know one will not come – _he_ always comes and ruins it.

Someone's taking over and it's not me. It's someone who's raised and proper. Someone who's far more intelligent to bother themselves over the likes of you. It's someone my father would be proud of and often he is. But it's not me - it isn't. Whose mouth is that? I want them to shut up – to stop talking and to quit always ruining everything for me and taking away things that are _mine _even though I never had them in the first place.

Just _shut up_.

But he won't. He never does.

I think I want to cry. Or scream, because I do not cry. I never cry unless I'm physically hurt. And at those times it's quite different – it's okay - because tears are the body's natural reaction to pain.

Although, sometimes when I see you it's like someone's stabbed me in the gut and that's very physical isn't it? -

It doesn't matter. This isn't me talking. It's not _me_. Why can't you see this? Why is it that you can do anything in the world but see people for who they are?

Even with those glasses you're blind.

You look angry, like you think I mean these words; they're horrible and spiteful and those idiots behind you look furious and close to kill.

But I can't stop and I can't let you see past this because it'll be my downfall and it's weak and I'm already the weakest person I know.

Can't stop these words now. I go too far and you're shaking with anger and you bite back with your own retorts that are just as vile as mine and I know it's not really you but you just want to see my reaction.

I hate you.

I hate you.

I hate you.

I hate you.

You push me against the wall. You're ignoring your friends – you've been so _angry_ this year. My head wants to explode. We're touching and I hope you don't feel my body's reaction because you're pressed against me from chest to thigh – everything would be so _obvious _and embarrassing if you could feel it.

I don't care that you're yelling insults in my ear and threatening to curse me, because I feel like I want to scream, just like I do when waking up from a perfectly wonderful nightmare.

It's over. It always was. Here's the ending that's already been presented to us. No room for change – I should have known that.

_I_ _hate you_.

Just like I hate myself.

_A/N: So, I wrote this a very long ago, got no reviews, dug it up and thought I could post it again. It could end here – but I could also possibly write more (because I've _planned _more) but only if I know there's someone there to read it (so if you did read it, tell me!)._

_Please, read and review._


	2. The Beginning

Er – my only explanation for this chapter is that Draco's mind is slowly becoming more coherent as he nears the "beginning". Basically that means that I slipped out of the writing that I was doing before. Please forgive me if the style seems different. The first chapter was written a considerable amount of time before this and I feel I couldn't quite peg it down.

Post HBP points to be made:

Harry and Ginny got together but have not broken up… yet

Draco is not on any missions from Voldemort

Draco does confide in Myrtle

It's sixth year

Dumbledore is alive

**Dissonance 2**

**The Beginning of Something Far Too Frightening **

It's dark and cold. I'm freezing and my fingers feel stiff and my lips are shaking and it's almost like none of this is real because I can still only think of you. Only you. Not how a warming charm might help in the dead, cold of winter or the fact that I may very well freeze to death. But it's you, you, you and why can't I get you out of my head? It's like a buzzing little fly that you try to swat away but it never leaves and gets so close that the _buzz, buzz, buzz _is right inside of you and all around. It pushes out a part of me and makes me shake. Makes we quiver and want to curl up around something safe and warm.

The dungeons are cold.

They've never been this cold and you're so, so far away. You're safely tucked in bed with your warm, family of friends when all I have here to talk to are the ghosts that roam the halls.

If things could be different you could be here and I'd curl up safe inside and never be cold again.

But things will never be different because I'm not a person of chances. I'm a person of fear and a person of weakness and I can't ever get it to change even if I want it.

The sun is peeking over the edges of a magical window and it's telling me that I've once again spent the whole night awake. Spent the whole night thinking. Spent the whole night dreading closing my eyes.

Spent the whole night dreading those wonderful nightmares I could only hope were real.

I'm rubbing my eyes because I feel hollowed and stretched as if I've been awake for days when it's only been one night I spent sleepless. I'm putting on layers and layers and layers to strengthen me for today but nothing I wear seems to keep out the cold.

In the Great Hall you're only at the next table and I want to reach out and run my fingers along that hard, exposed neck and I want to push my hands under all that fabric to find warm skin and heated moments and never, ever be cold again. I want out of the dark and into that shining hope I know I'll never be able to find.

Someone's talking to you and I'm blazing with fury just as her hair blazes with the sun and her cheeks are glowing and yours are red and I want to smash that fire that should only shine for me.

She's comfort and she's stands for what you want and I'm awkward. I stand for what you hate and for what you'd never, ever succumb to. I never get the comfort of company. I never get the comfort of knowing I've someone there. I never get the comfort of intimacy. I'm thrown the ache of the dungeons and of dreams that make me choke in desperation.

You're laughing your hero laugh and you're face is alive and you're looking the happiest I've ever seen you. Something inside me is crumbling away and falling, falling, falling down that deep well where I keep unspoken desires. It's an area of me that I can never reach.

She smiles that smile of a newly found love and she's the damsel in distress and _oh, _how I'd really like to make her fit the role and make her cry out to be rescued.

But you're the hero and you'd come on trusty steed and your eyes see black and white and in the darkness I'd be so black you'd hardly see me. You'd take her away and disappear beyond the horizon in stories that are never fit for me.

Father told me not to believe in fairy tales. He says they're the hopes of old fools. Stories spun by those who could never really live and those who hoped to be carried away themselves.

But I believe in fairytales. Just as I hope to one day be dragged away on the back of a noble, glowing stallion and I'd never, ever have to look back. Just as I'd love to see that sunset, to see the colors seep back into earth and melt along a crimson sphere and to be a part of that moment when you disappear from reality.

My eyes are closed. My hands are tight, I think my quill's just snapped under my fingers and I try not to think about it and I try not to look and I try not to desperately hope it was me instead of a red headed, blood traitor.

My eyes burn. There's a bursting red orange in the darkness and someone's poking me. _Hey, hey, are you okay?_

But I'm not okay. I'm not right. I'm not fine. And I never, ever will be. Not while your there but not here and not while I'm so, so scared of what's come. Not while I'm trapped in my head and trapped inside visions of things that will never come to pass.

I will _never_ be okay.

You're laughing your hero laugh. I want to smash the sound. You're not a hero, not while I'm suffering oh so close and you've yet to save me.

I want to turn the wheels of time and step back into a fifteen year old body. I want to be that boy who snarled and be the boy that couldn't care whether or not you necked with anyone, anywhere. I want to be back in those shoes that fit so well and I want to have that safe denial and I want to be before this – before all of this – and before he left and before I only had you here to focus on.

There's a lump in my throat and my thoughts, my ears, my eyes, my _heart_ are being wrenched from you and thrown back to the present as someone hastily tells me the ink's now getting all over my shoes. Shoes could be the last thing on my mind but now I'm here and I've stopped watching you and the ink all over my now finished quill has leaked all over the table and is turning my eggs blue.

_Are you sure you're alright? You've been acting off lately…_

If only they could know. I'm making excuses and I'm pushing up from the table in a hurry. I've got to get out of here. My lungs are going to explode. My head is going to burst. My heart feels like it's a weakened creature that's been struggling with a great and terrible monster.

Not long ago I went to that old, run down girl's toilet. There's a ghost there, you know. I went to her and I cried my eyes out; cried my soul out onto that wet and musky floor. She's the only, only one I've been able to tell. Only she knows of my dreams and of my nightmares and she alone shares that fear that when she goes to reach for you her hand falls through like she's not even there.

I'm slouching through the great, open doors and somewhere there's sunlight streaming through a lone window. I wrap my cloak further around me because I've suddenly grown much colder than I was this morning and when I turn the corner I've finally frozen.

Father told me not to believe in love. He said that it was the misguided hope of old fools and that our emotions should be used for better things.

You're up against her, she's up against you and I can't see where either of you end. It's a clash of red and black and skin and hurried touches and it sends a shaft of heat deep through my ice and roots me to the spot.

How can I not believe in love when it feels like my body is crumbling when I watch you?

I don't even care that my frenzied squeak breaks your passion.

I don't even care that I'm becoming someone else. I don't care that I'm shooting a laugh and hurling an insult horrible enough to send the two of you meters apart. I don't care that you're furious. I don't care that she's mortified.

I just don't, don't care.

I don't care that you haven't dared look at me since our last fight. I don't care that when you do, you're a frightened child under wand point. I don't care that your ears turn pink and that you mutter to your friends how embarrassing it is that I'm always watching you.

I don't care that you know and I don't care that when I pushed you against that wall my body sent you the messages that my words could never do.

You're telling her that she'll be late for class. You're telling her that she should go. You're telling her that you'll catch up and that maybe, at lunch, you can finish what's been interrupted. You're eyes are narrowing towards me when you make that last a promise.

Sometimes I can't believe my luck. Sometimes there are things that happen that allow me to believe there's someone altering with my life and pulling at my strings. They're often bad and now I'm alone with you and now it's just us and something is telling me this isn't as good as it seems.

You're voice is rough and demanding. My ears are yours. It reminds me of that voice I've heard rasp with so much fervor in my nightmares. You ask me what I'm up to, you ask my why I'm there and why I can't just ever leave you alone.

I cannot answer. I'm battling with myself and I'm willing him to leave and I'm red and angry and it's suddenly not cold at all. I've got too many layers and too many clothes and so have you. I get hot just looking at you.

You're angered by my silence and, _Of course, _you say. Of course I'm not going to tell you and of course I only want to mess with your head.

You move to walk away and quickly – skillfully – like I've been doing this for years and, really, in my mind I have, I grab your wrist and my fingers mash against you palm and your confused but so am I because this isn't me either. Who is this?

Who am I?

You're wrist is cold – don't pull away – I hold you tight and maybe if I hold you just in the right way and in the right place our skin will melt together and without that barrier of skin I'll seep into you and live there deep inside where it's always warm and there's always that distant star – that twinkle in your eye that's a beacon of hope.

When I was nine father called me a coward for being afraid of toy dragons. Father is often right. I am a coward and I am afraid.

So very afraid.

I can't live like this any longer. With this confusion and this obsession and those nightmares that always remind me of the wonders that I cannot have. Cannot touch. I'm so afraid – such a coward that I force myself to spit the words and somehow they still come out like a threat.

You'd think when I finally told you something, when I finally made that first, cowardly step, that it would be something worthwhile but its not. The words are thick and unused and sound stupid, stupid, stupid.

_I need you._

Your lips are moving – my eyes are glued. You form three words I did not want.

_I don't understand_.

Father once explained to me the difference between want and need. He said that when you want something you can easily live without it. When you want something it's a fleeting fancy of interest and that in time it goes away. When you want something, it isn't necessary.

When you need something it's essential. When you need something you're physically harmed when it's absent. When you need something you can't possibly survive intact without it.

I don't want you.

I _need _you.

And I know the difference.

How can you be so frustrating? How can you do this to me after I've been so stupid and cowardly and laid myself out to you?

Father always said I shouldn't believe in you. You're not really a hero and all you are is the misplaced hope of an old man.

I'm beyond frustrated. Beyond angry. Beyond wanting to curl up and die. I've broken away from myself and you _don't understand_? I've jumped down that pitch black hole that's the unknown and you won't even catch me?

You're pulling away. You're pulling away and I can't make you stop and I can't even think and now I'm so confused I'm not sure who's doing what and which part of this is real. My hand is still tightly grasping yours and with a frantic yank I pull you in and pull you down and I'm there in the moment waiting, a moment I've had years to make, and in your bewilderment you don't lean away until it's much to late.

Your lips taste like that missing part of me that I'd never been able to find. Your mouth makes my chest feel like I'm crushed under a hot and terrible weight. Your breath is the spark that ignites me.

It's a kiss molded from misunderstandings. A kiss shaped from years of loneliness. It's desperation in the form of a swift and furious movement. It's chaos uttered in a few, hurried breaths.

It's the middle of our end, the end to our beginning, and the beginning of something far too frightening.

And now my mind is becoming a blank, deserted canvas that's been slashed and weathered. Across its bereft wasteland is scrawled a simple, ugly word.

Forbidden.

Forbidden.

Forbidden

What would father say?

He'd say you were the enemy. He'd tell me not to trust you. He'd tell me a million and one things that I don't want to believe but have been forced to for years.

But father's gone, you've seen to that. Suddenly I'm gasping, hot and furious against your lips, my body is raking with a dry and horrible sobbing that rattles my foundations. You make your move to pull away. You're shaking your head in disbelief. In shock. _No_, you say. _ NO._

Muggles are told not to believe in magic. It's only the hopes of old fools. But magic is as real and as important as the breaths that we take. There is a part of a child that secretly believes in magic, if only the innocent magic of childhood. It's like the part of me that believes in magic and believes in fairy tales and in love and you. It's like that part of me that never wants to give up.

You're shaking your head. You're lips are moving. I think finally you understand.

_No._

And I'm a little boy again. I'm reaching out my hand and I'm offering myself to you and you can figure out the right sort for yourself, thanks.

I need you.

You're running away.

The streaming light is gone. It's so very cold.

My mind screams for you to come back. Come back. I'm a lost and frightened child and my father's being pulled away to that miserable rock in the middle of the sea only now it's you and the feelings aren't the same.

Come back. I need you.

I need you.

I need you.

I need you.

More than I've ever needed anything before.

_I'm sorry that took longer than it should have and I'm sorry it's short. I told people that it would be soon in coming but no luck.  I was horribly uninspired when it came to this and then HBP and all the plot bunnies started to eat my up. I had to drag myself away from them to finish this chapter. There is but one left because, remember, Draco's obsession has a beginning, middle and end. Just all in the wrong order! Ha. He still has a whole stage left._

_Also, I'm beginning to fear my dear is slightly off his rocker. It's just much more fun to write that way._

_Thanks a lot to those who reviewed, much more than I expected for this. I did think I'd get at least one telling me how horrible I am and that I should just go swallow my fist and die. sigh You all exceed expectations._

_Also, pimp Dissonance (or venoz) if you must. Really… if you insist I think I may just allow it. Hint Hint._


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